Tips on raising a healthy young paladin

He's a lap penguin

My little one hit level 30 last night! (Well, she actually hit 32, but 30 flashed an achievement on my screen and I’m all about things flashing on my screen.) Being the loving, maternal person that I am (don’t choke from laughing please), I tend to think of levels 1-30 as the kiddie stage, 30-60 as the teen years and 60-80 as the young adult too-old-to-be-living-at-home-but-doing-it-anyway stage. So my precious little one is off to WoW highschool and to celebrate, here are the tricks I’ve stumbled upon while learning to raise level a paladin in this day and age. (Please note that I’m not consulting any leveling guides, so I may be repeating or contradicting what others say. This is all based on my experience and thoughts.)

Spell/ability stuff

– From a distance, hand of reckoning followed by exorcism will take a chunk of health off a mob before it even reaches you.
– Even talented, the CDs on judgments are annoying. Make sure you keep yourself active by hitting the space bar all times.
– Consecrate uses a crapton of mana. Judgment of wisdom doesn’t cover it, but its still the best judgment option, IMO.
– When mobs run away, you temporary fall off their aggro list. You can finish them off with hand of reckoning. I actually prefer this to judgment of justice. Whenever they’re running, they’re not hitting you.
– Seal of justice doesn’t proc enough in pve to be useful, in my experience. You’re better off sticking with righteousness. It’s nice in pvp though.
– Level herbalism for the heal. You won’t have mana and time to waste to heal yourself.

Talents

– Unless you plan on leveling holy or prot in instances (I wouldn’t recommend it – you have to play at peak server times to find groups and even then, its inconsistent), grab Pursuit of Justice as fast as you can.
– If I were to respec, I would go like this, basically grabbing Seals of the Pure and Divine Intellect instead of all the crit and damage bonuses in the ret tree. At least up until level 40 when you can get Judgments of the Wise. Mana is THAT much of an issue.
– Actually, I think I’ll go do that now.
– Eye for Eye is a debatable leveling talent. I think I may try it around level 40ish. You get critted a lot at low levels and it’s great passive damage when you’re fighting several mobs at once.

Glyphs

– Glyph of Seal of Righteousness would be a great leveling glyph in theory. In practice, you need to be level 50 to use it. I don’t know if I’ll be using other seals by then, so my n00b purchase is currently sitting in my bank.
– Glyphs of Judgment and Consecration are the way to go. I got Consecration first because it was cheaper, but they’re both fine, it’s up to personal preference, really.
– When consulting the AH, bid on glyphs that have 1s50c as their start bidding price. If you win them, resell them for 7g. That’s what I do.

Gear

– Seth from One Copper spoke about buying leveling gear on his testshow and advised against in the lower levels. While he does make a good point, I’ve found that buying leveling gear is pretty useful in certain conditions. Buy the stuff going for fairly cheap (don’t get the 100g blue, but consider the 20g blue). Being able to do and take more damage allows you to do high level quests faster, hence speeding up the leveling process. Buying gear also gives you the choice of the stats you want instead of having spirit forced down your throat by quest givers. Blue gear will also last you several levels, which is nice.
– I finally understand why there is so much low level mail gear with both strength and intellect on it. It’s not weird, it’s hella useful.
– If you’re lucky enough to have friends on your new server to run you through stuff, pay attention to the green drops from high level instances. When they’re decently itemized, keep them stored in your bank until you can use them. It will ensure you have gear replacements every time you ding.

Level in style

– Another reason to buy gear is to level in style. Just because you’re playing on a secondary server is no reason to neglect your toon.
– Get your paladin mount at level 20.
– I plan to get dual spec at 40 BECAUSE I CAN.
– Get a few vanity pets. Leveling gets lonely without them.
– Level your cooking, first aid and fishing as you go. Fishing really slows you down though, so I admit I’ve been neglecting it.

Don’t be broke

– Like I suggested earlier, whenever you’re at the AH, scan through and bid on 1s50c glyphs, when you win, you can sell them back for more.
– Have herbalism as one of your professions, both for the heal and for the tons of cash you’ll make off it.
– Have another gathering prof or inscription as your other profession, they’re lucrative to level. I’d go with mining over skinning, unless, like me, you’re super sick of mining.
– Sell all your greens on the AH. I sell my greens under level 20 for 99s, level 20-30 for 1g99s and level 30-40 for 2g99s. I could probably sell them for more, but the low prices mean I generally sell them the first time around and don’t have to worry about reposting or deposits.
– Once you don’t need it for first aid, sell your cloth on the AH. You could also skip first aid, but I like the fast, manaless heal between fights.
– Sell stuff like naga scales, low level gems and spider silk on the AH. People will actually buy it.

PVP

– Leveling on a pvp server isn’t that bad before level 30. I don’t know what its like beyond level 30 yet. Most of the people I’ve fought were follow hordies in duals.
– Battlegrounds are super fun at low level! Your lack of spells as a paladin just has you running circles around people without hitting any buttons, but you still do decent damage.
– I switch between seal of justice and righteousness depending on who I’m fighting. I get more complaints in duals when I’m using seal of justice and my rule of thumb in pvp is that the more an ability annoys your opponent, the better it is.
– Battleground experience seems to make low level pvp much smoother. I’m not struggling with getting one-shotted like I did before BGXP.
– No matter what level, battlegroup or faction you’re part of, your team will always be full of “noobs” and “morons” and your BG leader will be throwing a hissy fit the entire time while no one notices. Just in case you were wondering.
– Ding 30 in a BG. Do it, its an ultimate ego boost.

And that, dear friends, is my report on getting a paladin through childhood. Now for taking on the terrible teens as my paladin experiences the world outside the deserted Hillsbrad Foothills and deals with issues like gear barely covering her thighs, bad influences from higher level toons and trying to take on too much, too soon. Now, if you’ll excuse me, she wants me to take her to get her hair dyed.